The Talkeetna boasts a
little more whitewater
than Walden Pond: a 17-mile
Class III-IV canyon, in
fact.
It all happened so quickly. Two seconds after arriving at K2 Aviation in Talkeetna, Alaska, I’m solo aboard a Cessna 185 headed for the put-in of the Talkeetna River. Behind the seat of pilot Doug Geeting are two kayaks stuffed with gear. In the hold: raft, frames and oars.
My wife and I have a pact. I fully enjoy visiting her relatives in her home state of Alaska, but I need some Me Time to get in touch with my inner Thoreau. I get it here big time. When Doug departs I’m completely alone in the wilderness, waiting for my partners to arrive for a 70-mile, four-day float on the best whitewater run in the state.
While my wife’s taking the kids to an indoor water park in Anchorage, followed by a visit to Chuck E. Cheese, I feel what Henry David must have at Walden Pond. His two-year, two-month, two-day experiment in simple living at his hand-built cabin resulted in Walden, or Life in the Woods, one of the world’s quintessential wilderness books. I’ll be in the wilds less than 100 hours, but the added remoteness might equal things out. When the plane’s buzz vanishes over the horizon, I don’t even have Thoreau’s cabin as comfort.
My senses are honed, from the spider scampering across a rock by my feet to the eagle cresting a thermal. I follow a set of bear tracks, trailed by red berries, across a cobblestone island to scout a river braid for rigging the rafts. A caribou, whose velvety rack mirrors the massive, upturned rootballs littering the banks, crosses an island and fords the river. The only sound is the hissing of the silt-laden river digesting rock from the glacier upstream.
Sawtooth ridges rise overhead, tapering into smooth, pale-green fields of tundra striped with avalanche paths. Behind them lies the Alaska Range, the biggest in all North America.
The river cackles and I turn, thinking it might be a bear. As when Scuba diving, I feel animals sneaking up behind me, wherever I’m not watching. I turn back and see the caribou again, now way downstream. He watches me, and I him, as the river gurgles in arbitration. I peek over my shoulder again in paranoia, remembering the bear spray 200 yards away. Could I reach it in time? It was a cheechako move to not take it with me.
The river is known for its bears, which is why we’re starting here instead of the usual put-in 22 miles downstream, involving a seven-mile float in on Prairie Creek. It’s salmon and blueberry season, meaning there are bears every place you dip your oars.
My thoughts continue to wander. When will the others get here? Unlike Thoreau, who regularly walked to Concord, Mass., for his civilization fix, I’m 70 miles from the nearest town—if that’s what you can call Talkeetna, a no-stoplight metropolis of 800 that inspired TV’s Northern Exposure.
Even Thoreau might have found this a bit of an overdose. As scholars note, despite his granola-eating reputation, he neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness, instead seeking a middle ground. On this his detractors pounced. “Let it be known that Nature Boy went home on weekends to raid the family cookie jar,” wrote author Richard Zacks. Robert Louis Stevenson threw his own barbs as well. “There is apt to be something unmanly…in a life that does not move with dash and freedom” he penned.
That won’t be my case here. I’ll be dashing and darting plenty. Downstream is a 14-mile-long Class III-IV wilderness canyon, billed as the most consistent whitewater in the state. The action starts with Entrance Exam, then Class IV Toilet Bowl, which a friend once ran after a glacial dam broke, bringing the water up 30,000 cfs overnight. I’ll be paddling it in a Pyranha Sub-6, the only boat we could fit inside the plane and one the lanky naturalist could never even shoehorn into.
An eagle soars overhead, circling for salmon, briefly eclipsing the only cloud in the sky. I contemplate taking my clothes off -- to strip myself down to my own bare existence -- just because I can. My pile pants, watch, sunglasses, t-shirt and sandals don’t seem to belong. Not that I’m curious about what lay beneath, but I wonder if Thoreau ever did the same.
I shield the sun with my hand and scan the surrounding peaks. I take in all life, from the flies and plants at my feet to the alder saplings aspiring their way up the hillsides, the spruce above them, and the tundra-clad slopes higher still. I stroll downstream, finding more prints of moose, caribou and bear.
Despite his cabin-bound musings, Thoreau had chores to attend to, and so do I. I examine the braid closest to the landing strip to see if leads to the main river, or if we’re better shuttling gear to the main stem. As Thoreau did with his book, I want to make it look like I did something productive while I was here, rather than just spacing out on the wilderness
It’s too late. The drone of Doug’s plane pierces the silence with payload number two. Soon we put on and make our way downstream, each stroke taking us closer to civilization.
Do I ever find my inner Thoreau? Is four days enough to placate one’s civilization-saturated soul? It’s hard to say. I like to think that at trip’s end my stubble will be better than his neck-beard, which Louisa May Alcott told Ralph Waldo Emerson, “will most assuredly deflect amorous advances.” And while Nature Boy maintained that he would “fain keep sober always,” we enjoy a keg of Alaskan Smokey Porter the whole way down.
But Thoreau, who died in 1862 at age 44 from bronchitis, also remarked, “Who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?”
Like his final days, I, too, battle a cough the entire trip, the result of the “civilized” confines of a trade show. But while cold medicines did little to help it in the city, the wilderness proves a far more effective tonic.
We hit the canyon on day three, and I find myself as close as I’ll ever come to the naturalist’s beliefs. Thoreau’s last words were “Now comes good sailing.” As I head into Entrance Exam I morph them to more modern times. “Now comes good surfing,” I say to myself, rounding the unknown corner.
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They Said It
"The night after the fair, Steve Fisher was kidnapped by a bunch of German kayakers and found himself in an even bigger party: the Oktoberfest in Munich -- he loved it."
--Stephan Glocker, editor of Kanu magazine, of the revelry at this year's Kanumesse tradeshow.
"I got 300 bucks for the next couple weeks so should be able to make it.... If not I'll kill some raccoons or something..."
--Team Teva paddler Rush Sturges on training on the Ottawa for the upcoming Worlds
Not sure he would feel so warm and fuzzy if Outdoor Retailer, for example, attended the C&K awards party and used that stage to publicly point out that C&K was not serving its advertisers or readers well and as a result Outdoor Retailer would be launching another magazine to better serve the paddlesports community. SNEWS reporter Marcus Woolf on Canoe & Kayak magazine's surprise announcement to host its own paddlesports tradeshow at this year's Outdoor Retailer Summer Market show in Salt Lake City.
The stuff that people are doing in their second and third year now would have beat me in the world championships in 1993." --Four-time world freestyle kayak champion Eric Jackson in a story in The Wall Street Journal on how today's kayakers are improving quicker thanks, in part, to the proliferation of whitewater parks.
The scariest part was looking up afterward and seeing a bunch of boa constrictors..." --Brazil's Pedro Olivia on The Today Show, after setting a new 127-foot waterfall record and emerging in a cave behind the falls.
"These paddlers began treating waves more like a trampoline than a slip-n-slide." --Tyler Bradt, in an American Whitewater story on the evolution of kayaking, referring to the Young Gun era.
"They will be punished...the lawyers must be fed." --KISS star Gene Simmons after discovering at this year's SIA ski show that ski company Faction used his tongue-hanging likeness as a graphic on one of its company's skis.
"I felt most at home camping [on islands] mid-river, part of neither the U.S. or Mexico, a citizen of the river rather than of a particular city." --Keith Bowden, author of The Tecate Journals, of overnighting on his 1,885-mile descent of the entire Rio Grande along the Mexican/U.S. border.
It’s peers certifying peers -- no bullshit, no huge costs. Assessors would be as nervous as a poodle at a rottweiler party if they passed someone who didn’t belong.” --Australia Rafting Federation President Graham Maifredi on the International Rafting Federation’s new plan to certify commercial river guides.
"He was one of the leading paddlers of his era, a man whose skills set the standard that others tried to emulate." --Safety guru Charlie Walbridge on John Sweet, who was on the first party to run the Upper Gauley and just turned 70.
Dude, it was sick. I was surfing the wake of big rigs in Los Mochis and splatting mini-vans that were floating down the street!"
--The Oil and Water Project's Seth Warren, on surfing in the wake of Hurricane Ike.
That was my fourth one...I broke three other paddles while training." --Olympic Cinderella story and Togo kayaker Ben Boukpeti, on breaking his paddle in elation after winning the country's first-ever Olympic medal in any discipline.
Thread of the Month!
"My girlfriend and I are LEGITIMATELY interested in a nudist raft trip through Deso-Gray. We have a raft but are interested in having a few more. Kayakers would be welcome as well. We have a permit that leaves on August 15th. We drink a bit so if you're uptight we might be slightly incompatible..."
-- View Thread Here!
"Part of the art is managing your blood levels and knowing how to regulate hydration and body temperature, and that is how one truly succeeds...” --Tao Berman, winner of the Homestake Creek Race at last year's Teva Mtn. Games, to Ken "Hobie" Hoeve, who was too cold to take his second run (who can blame him...it was 30 degreees.)
"We did the first ever kayak fishing descent of Boca Grande, where we caught a couple of monster Tarpon...scary place for kayaks." Ken Whiting, on kayak fishing Florida for a new video, adding that they had a huge hammerhead shark take out a 120-pound tarpon 10 feet away from one of their kayaks.
Steamboat Springs Police Blotter (night of Paddling Life Invitational): "A suspicious person was reported in the 800 block of Yampa Street. The person was taken to detox and given a citation for urinating in public." Ring any bells, competitors?
"I only caught three fish all day but they were the right ones."
--Capt. Roger Bump of his winning 65.5” slam, consisting of a 29.75” red, a 19” trout, and a 16.75” flounder at the 2008 Jacksonville Kayak Fishing Classic. View results here.
“Vegetables…that’s what food eats!” --Rafter (and pig farmer) Channing Reynolds on a recent float on Utah's San Juan
"You are no longer on the rafting trip..." --NHL hockey defenseman Martin Skoula of the Minnesota Wild--in a text message to the Colorado Avalanche's Milan Hejduk after Heyduk checked him into the boards--in reference to an annual rafting trip the two take together.
"They could relate to sports, but it was certainly different than what they do." Olympic sprint kayaker Greg Barton on being inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame alongside the Detroit Red Wings' Steve Iverson and NFL star Desmond Howard.
Joke of the Month!
Saturday morning I got up early, put on my long johns, dressed quietly, and slipped quietly into the garage to put the kayak on the truck, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. There was snow mixed with the rain, and the wind was blowing 50 mph. I turned on the radio and discovered that the weather would be bad throughout the day. I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. There I cuddled up to my wife's back, now with a different anticipation, and whispered, "The weather out there is terrible."
My loving wife of twenty years replied, "Can you believe that idiot husband of mine is out kayaking in that shit?"
If you don't sit in the right place, you'll sink." --72-year-old Leo Swinimer (as told to the Wall Street Journal) on paddling his 600-lb. pumpkin in Nova Scotia's annual Windsor-West Hants Pumpkin Regatta.
Dear Editors: I really enjoyed the latest e-newsletter from paddlinglife. Seriously, one doesn't often read and click through these things "cover to cover," but I just did. Of course, pole dancing is always guaranteed to up readership. I'd like to request more pictures of Shea Stephens. Can you post some, or email me some, or just give me her phone number? Thanks guys! --Aaron Bible
The aircraft that found him said they could not lift that amount of weight. Every resource we had simply did not work until we got down to physical manpower" --Chief Deputy Steve Ovick of Minnesota's Pine Cty. Sheriff's Office (as told to AP), regarding the resuce of a 500-lb. rafter from a shallow stretch of the St. Croix River. To get him out of the river, 50 rescuers took turns hoisting the boat two feet at a time until they got it to a spot deep enough to float.
“That kayak kind of kicked my ass out there. Everything else was easy."
--Ice Cube on the most difficult aspect of filming Are We Done Yet, which involved hopping in a kayak.
"My son and I are avid canoeists, fishermen and camping nuts. In other words, we smell badly on weekends..."
--Canoeist James Collins
Canoe Thread of the Month1! Note: Check here for the best of paddling forum threads...this one from rec.boats.paddle:
"I ran my BlueHole 17A down Husum Falls (White Salmon River, WA) in June 1980...afterwards, several outfitters told me that no one else had run it in anything other than kayak. Does anyone know of any earlier canoe runs of the falls....?" (View entire thread at www.tinyurl.com/38wlvh).
Thread of the Month2!
"How many people are there who paddle flat-water freestyle routines to the sounds of Yanni? And of those, how many are guys?" View thread here.
Thread of the Month3!
"Yeah, the RPM sea kayak is notoriously difficult to control. A native Greenland design, the RPM originated when the arctic seal population disappeared and smaller sea kayaks were made from the only hides available, those of the now extinct giant lemming.
"The RPM name comes from an Inuit corruption of the Danish "v'Rij Pathetisch Misvatting""
"I congratulate you on your perception that any decked boat is, of course, a sea kayak." View thread here.
Thread of the Month 4
Newbie looking for Stable Wreck Boat: Must be under 10'', and fast, very stable for paddling lakes and rivers, interested in running Class III whitewater and maybe ocean too. It needs to be light too and have a large seat for my big butt.
How many cupholders does a good stable boat have? How hard are these to lift onto my motor home? Can't spend more than $500 for both boats for the wife and myself. How big a motor can you put on one of these? Where are some good paces to fish and drink alcohol while paddling? DO I need a wet suit? I googled for some austrailian wetsuits .. try googling for "Radiator Wetsuit Ads" .... what do you think? View thread here. You can get anything you want (even a Swift canoe!). Click here for Alice's Restaurant Link Thread of the Month
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